Machine Learning Engineer, Whatnot
Content and Navigation
$245-345k
+ Equity
More information about location
Live stream platform & marketplace
Posted today
Live stream platform & marketplace
1001+ employees
Posted today
$245-345k
+ Equity
More information about location
1001+ employees
Company mission
To enable anyone to turn their passion into a business and bring people together through commerce.
Role
Who you are
- Curious about who thrives at Whatnot? We’ve found that embodying a low ego, growth mindset, and high-impact drive goes a long way here
- As our next Machine Learning Engineer you should have 4+ years of generalist software development experience in high growth startups, plus:
- 4+ years of industry experience building and deploying ML models to solve user problems at scale
- Industry experience with a track record of applying practical methods to solve real-world problems on consumer scale data
- Experience in applied statistical and machine learning fields e.g. search, recommendations, content understanding, natural language processing, and large language models
- Proficiency in Python, SQL, and common ML frameworks
- Strong communication and leadership skills; ability to influence roadmap and align cross-functional teams in a remote environment
- Excellent product instincts. You first think about users rather than the best technical solution
- You are known for shipping products and features lightning-fast
What the job involves
- The Discovery Content and Navigation (CAN) team’s mission is to capture intent and content signals to build a seamless, engaging, and personalized navigation experience for Whatnot buyers
- We’re passionate about enabling and maintaining a healthy discovery ecosystem—one where buyers can easily find fun shows and connect with sellers
- Our work spans a wide range of problems, including search, taxonomy, events, and intent and content understanding. We leverage AI technology, make data-informed decisions, and ship quickly to deliver value to our users
- Lead the design, development, and productionization of ML models to capture intent and content signals that powers personalized navigational experience, search, and recommendations
- Lead ML-based projects from end-to-end: scoping and planning, data collection and feature engineering, model training and deployment, backend implementation, and online experimentation
- Support product initiatives like category and brand recommendations, promote high quality and relevant livestreams and products in feed and search
- Work closely with teammates and cross-functional partners to implement ML-based solutions into production at scale
- Drive technical excellence and establish ML best practices across the team and org
Our take
Live shopping is changing the way people engage with eCommerce and Whatnot is one of the key platforms driving this shift. The company operates across the US, UK, and Europe, where millions of people connect each day to buy, sell, and build communities around shared interests.
Founded in 2019, Whatnot allows real-time auctions where buyers can watch sellers showcase products and share their expertise, creating a more interactive and personal shopper experience. Sellers include individual creators and small businesses who use live shows to reach audiences and grow their online presence.
As of 2025, the company reports over $6B in sales, with sellers earning significantly more on average than other major marketplaces. And with a range of investor support, Whatnot is committed to developing new ways to make online shopping more social and community-driven.
Steph
Company Specialist at Welcome to the Jungle
Meet the team
Jon Malkemus, VP Product Design
Insights
54% employee growth in 12 months
Company
Funding (last 2 of 8 rounds)
Oct 2025
$225m
SERIES F
Jan 2025
$265m
SERIES E
Total funding: $974.2m
Company benefits
- Wellness: Health, dental, vision, and life insurance plans. We also cover some of the cost for your dependents as well.
- Compensation: Generous compensation, including a competitive base salary and equity. Whatnot offers monthly reimbursement for internet and phone costs, along with a one-time home office set-up allowance. Whatnot offers a pension plan and matches employee contributions of up to 4% of the employee’s base salary.
- Recharge: Whatnot gives you the freedom to take time off as you see fit. And, we take company-wide Winter and Summer breaks so we can recharge. Whatnot provides a monthly allowance for wellness expenses. We know that to take care of our customers, we have to take care of ourselves. Supplemental health and life insurance coverage comes standard at Whatnot. 16 weeks of paid parental leave, and an additional one-month gradual return-to-work period.* Plus an additional childcare allowance, and a lifetime allowance for family planning, including adoption and fertility expenses. *The leave allowances provided by Whatnot may be dictated / informed by your country’s legal requirements,
- Flexibility: As a remote co-located team, we’re inspired by innovation and anchored in our values. With hubs in the US, UK, Germany, Ireland, and Poland, we’re building the future of online marketplaces –together.
Company values
- Always listen to customers
- Move uncomfortably fast
- Prioritize impact ruthlessly
- Own everything and nothing
- Set crazy goals
- Provide extreme transparency
- Optimize for the upside
- Team over ego
- Figure it out
- Deeply understand why
- Have fun & be kind
Company HQ
Venice, Los Angeles, CA
Articles
Leadership
Grant LaFontaine
(Co-Founder & CEO)Former Product Marketing Manager at Google, Project Manager at Facebook. Also co-founded Kit.
Logan Head
(Co-Founder & CTO)Experience in Engineering, including at Maker's Row, Factr, and Flight Club. Former Senior Product Manager at GOAT.
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